If I Could Fly Read Online Free

purring. I’d give anything to be that cat, perfectly content in the sunshine.
    Looking through the gaping hole in the door, the place looks empty: there’s a carpet of junk mail on the floor, dirty net curtains hang limply at the two windows, empty fast-food boxes are abandoned on the narrow terrace. I hunker on my calves, hug my knees, my back against the wall of the steps. It will be hours until it’s dark, but I must keep hidden, even though it smells like a toilet down here.
    Above, the
click, clack, click, clack
of kitten heels, the
bam bam bam
of a ball being bounced, the
week, week, week
of a squeaky tyre on a bike or buggy as it’s pushed along. Although I am only a metre away from them, I am invisible, like a rat in a sewer. But I will surface again. This is not my last resting place, amongst the rubbish and the climbing ivy and the giant spider’s webthat stretches from the window to the wall.
    It’s just my hidey hole where I’ve decided to hang out and let the pain in my thigh calm down. I know there’s no escape route, Crease – nobody’s perfect. And I’m only going to close my eyes for a minute because I’m watching the gulls gliding in a circle and it’s making me sleepy. Shhh.



Chapter Six
    The ground under my body is vibrating. I’m a sheet being jiggled to take out my folds. Is that thunder, rumbling closer? I open my eyes. They begin to focus on cracked concrete and tangled ivy. An old, wizened face (a man, a woman who has lost her hair?), peering at me, net curtain drawn to one side. A disfigured hand beckoning to me, pointing to the front door.
    I feel like screaming, but no sound comes. One, two, three, I’m counting drops of water hitting the ground – that’s not good – and now the sky is falling in and I’m almost winded by the force of the water pelting down into the narrow basement, soaking me through.
    The face has gone. Has it been there all the time, watching me? Did I imagine it? Fear has jumbled myresponses. Dare I look through the gaping mouth in the door?
    I tilt my head back and try to drink but the drops have turned to ice, hitting my skin like pebbles on glass. No part of me is dry. No part of me wants to stay in this dark, wet hole. My legs are moving before my brain even clocks the sliding of the bolts and the creak of hinges opening very slowly. My hip bone feels as if it is grinding against gravel. The pain is making me feel sick, but I can’t give in to it.
    Up, up, up the steps, in three leaps, back on to the pavement. No one sees me. I’m invisible in the rain, a drowned rat scurrying, head down.
    Flash flash BANG!
The sound and light show has begun. The town looks like a film set for a moment, illuminated by a hundred arc-lamps, with a rain machine on full tilt. Spouts of water three metres high are spurting from storm drains.
    I want someone to say ‘Cut!’ and to take me into a trailer full of warm towels, hot milk and a huge plate ofchilli chicken with rice, to dry my hair and wrap me in the softest cotton robe you can buy.
    I want Little Bird to hold me and tell me everything’s all right.
    I don’t want to be sheltering in a pub doorway, waiting for the deluge to end. My clothes are steaming, my eyes are streaming. Not tears. My dam has burst. The water has to flow out somewhere.
    A man with a ring through his cheek and a woman with studded eyebrows and black eyes appear out of the mist, walk past me with disinterest and push open the pub door. I glimpse customers at tables, tucking into fish and chips or lasagne. They look happy. I feel even more alone. The door swings shut before anyone inside can raise an eyebrow at the kid who is loitering, looking lost.
    What’s your plan, Paper Clip?
    I’ll keep moving, Crease. Like you said, a moving target is harder to hit.
    I’m running through rainbows. The wall of waterhas become a fine mist shot through with sunlight. Richard Of York Gained Battle In Vain. Gran taught me that to help me remember the